The interaction of these two requirements produces self-organization. Definitions are made and then their makers try to work in accord with them. Self-fulfilling prophecies thus serve to produce behavior that does, in fact, conform to some degree with the definitions. Societal definitions at some point, usually at the outer limits, inevitably set some kind of exclusivity. Individuals are defined as being included in or excluded from some defined set.

Fundamentally involved here is the process usually known as "identity," the psychological combination of some cognitive markers about things in the external world associated with emotions of favor and disfavor, preference and rejection. The individual's identification with others who manifest certain features provides the psychosocial basis for the operation of any "society." It is the necessary prerequisite, or minimal concomitant, by which individuals divide the world into the wes and theys, the I and other. No human association exists without it, and it may become complex even in simple societies.

In the contemporary world, identity is clearly recognizable in the nation-state, but it is equally important in the remnant bands of collecting and horticultural peoples who do not recognize any more inclusive grouping. It is also found in ethnic or religious groups that claim precedence and autonomy over nation-states. The mental models, the concepts of membership, will in most cases vary with the actual collectivity of human beings who seem to occupy the space. As we will note shortly, the definition of identity given by a regulatory sector of a hierarchical system may differ profoundly from that of the people who compose the various subgroups that are included in it. The imposition of the so-called nation-state on the former colonial areas of Asia and Africa, and indeed on Europe, has almost everywhere failed to represent the identities present in the populations. Processes of self-organization are caught up in these diverse and often conflicting definitions of just what it is that should be reproducing. The Basque want reproduction, whereas the Spanish state sees it in terms of Spain. People will try to reproduce themselves and their social order in terms of what they perceive to be their identity.

The process of social formation thus always returns to the individual since each person must to some degree have his or her own self-definition. Given self-definition, individuals then further define themselves as members of collectivities in accord with their self-definition. If a society is composed only of people born of a given set of kin groups, then the individual must define himself as having been so born in order to be a member. Groups so defined can then be expanded to include nonhuman energy forms so that certain symbols become emotionally included. A household may include the pet dog as a beloved member; the lineage may treat an ancestor as being actively present; a public-spirited individual may declare himself a "citizen of the world," a "brother to all people"; or a totemic group may include the totemic animal, perhaps a badger. Identification is the product of mental models, but only of mental models that interplay with society.